Explore the interactive model below to learn how each element of Flawless Execution plays a critical role in helping you achieve performance excellence at the individual, team and organizational level.

Purpose

The pinnacle of our Flawless Execution model, the Purpose area informs all elements of organizational operations and guides decision-making at every level.

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Process

This iterative approach to daily operations and strategic execution creates a shared mental model that breaks down silos and communication barriers with simple, scalable processes. It brings day-to-day structure and discipline and ultimately means the difference between success and failure.

Purpose

The pinnacle of our Flawless Execution model, the Purpose area informs all elements of organizational operations and guides decision-making at every level.

Platform

This area of the model is the base of your organization. It's the structure that allows for day-to-day operations, and its health is the biggest determinant in achieving Flawless Execution.

Process

This iterative approach to daily operations and strategic execution creates a shared mental model that breaks down silos and communication barriers with simple, scalable processes. It brings day-to-day structure and discipline and ultimately means the difference between success and failure.

High-Definition Destination

The first step to winning is describing what victory looks like. Flawless Execution designs the future by establishing a picture of success and how it’s measured.

What is a High-Definition Destination (HDD)?

The HDD trades the ambiguity of traditional mission statements for a clear, compelling description of what the organization wants to be at a future date. Developing an HDD is an organization’s way of designing the future, an intentional means of long-range planning that serves as a guide for future actions and decision-making.

Building an HDD

HDD begins with a collaborative Situational Awareness exercise that helps leaders consider the many trends and threats in internal and external environments in order to increase the collective Situational Awareness and identify eminent challenges and opportunities. With this knowledge, leaders define or redefine a clear statement of the organization’s identity, purpose and principles. With shared Situational Awareness, leaders describe their organizations’s future in multiple key areas that come together to create a balanced, holistic and highly-defined future state – the design for the organization.

Strategy

The HDD determines what success looks like, and the Strategy determines how to achieve it.

Strategies for a Complex World

Flawless Execution’s approach to developing strategy focuses upon leveraging the complexity of your environment. As the highest level of planning, strategic organizational planning is effects-based — focusing less on the “how” and more on the “what.”

When leaders develop a strategy from Situational Awareness and effects-based thinking that targets Critical Leverage Points (CLPs), the strategy acquires greater agility, and therefore a greater chance of success in today’s tumultuous market.

TeamStorming

Strategy development with Flawless Execution leverages a powerful proprietary process called TeamStorming. This unique process enables teams to tap into the best ideas and turn them into actionable plans — all while empowering and engaging those who carry out those plans with both accountability and autonomy.

Leader's Intent

Having a strategy is one thing; executing it is something entirely different. High-performing organizations find the balance between setting strategic direction and allowing practical execution through decentralized decision-making empowered by Leader’s intent.

The use of collaborative planning and TeamStorming techniques at the strategic and operational levels of an organization cascades the intent of leadership and communicates that intent through the organization rapidly and effectively.

The Key to Organizational Alignment

Decentralized decision-making empowered by Leader’s Intent is the key to organizational alignment — and ultimately to effective execution of the overarching strategy. Everyone in the organization — from the front line to the C-suite — knows how their actions directly support the HDD.

Flawless Execution is a “fractal” planning tool, meaning that when used enterprise-wide, it ensures day-to-day operations are intentionally built to support high-level strategy and the HDD. Leader’s Intent means that an organization can say, with 100% confidence, that every team is executing toward those goals.

The Flawless Execution Cycle

The process portion of the model is the Flawless Execution Cycle, an iterative approach to daily operations and strategic execution aimed at creating a shared mental model that breaks down silos and communication barriers with simple, scalable process.

Military Beginnings, Business Application

The four-part Flawless Execution Cycle finds its origin in the zero-tolerance-for-error world of military aviation. The proprietary process leverages the connectedness of the modern organization in order to drive collaboration and accelerate learning at a time when the ability to do so is imperative to success.

Flawless Execution brings structure and discipline to the day-to-day process that ultimately make the difference between success and failure.

Plan

The Six Steps of Mission Planning

The six steps of mission planning is a common structure that’s applied strategically and tactically. This process leverages Situational Awareness, team member insight, lessons learned and contingency planning for more effective plans and improved execution.

State the mission objective

Identify threats

Identify resources

Evaluate lessons learned

Develop a course of action with individual accountability

Plan for contingencies

Brief

BRIEF the Mission

Pre-execution team briefs serve as a transition between the planning and execution phases, allowing teams to confirm alignment around plans and clarify remaining questions. In Flawless Execution, team leaders follow the B.R.I.E.F. acronym to conduct effective briefs.

Debrief

STEALTH Debriefing

One of the most powerful tools in the Flawless Execution Cycle is the S.T.E.A.L.T.H. Debriefing model. The continuous improvement and performance acceleration achieved through proper debriefing is essential to developing a culture of learning in today’s organizations.

Set the time

Tone — Nameless and rankless

Execution — Analyze the execution towards the objective

Analyze the execution and identify root causes

Lessons learned — Develop actionable lessons

Transfer lessons learned — Save and transmit throughout the organization

High note — Recap results in a positive manner

Standards

Making Operation Excellence a Standard

The foundation of executing as a team lies in well-written and well-communicated standards. Standards provide a common set of principles and expectations that keep the organization on track and provide guidance when a plan breaks down.

Standards equate to scalability, allowing businesses to quickly scale the desired behaviors that support achieving organizational initiatives. Flawless Execution provides step-by-step processes and techniques to cultivate the necessary behaviors to transform your organization’s culture into one that’s focused on meeting and exceeding company goals.

Training

Constant training and less-formal learning activities are a necessity in complex, turbulent environments. Most, if not all, of your training should be aligned with the High-Definition Destination and the supporting strategies in order to affect the environments you operate within.

Our training curriculums employ Demo-Do training techniques. This means the training first explains what must be learned, the learning must be demonstrated and finally, the learner must perform the learning. All the practical skills required to master Flawless Execution follow a Demo-Do method.

People

The Agents of Successful Execution

High-performing teams are greater than the sum of their parts. From the individuals who bring experience and diverse perspectives to the strategic and tactical efforts, the people are the backbone of any company. Leading team members of all backgrounds and experiences to work together as one cohesive team aligned around a shared objective is the fundamental component in achieving organizational excellence. The principles of Flawless Execution directly support this ability.

High-Definition Destination

The first step to winning is describing what victory looks like. Flawless Execution designs the future by establishing a picture of success and how it’s measured.

What is a High-Definition Destination (HDD)?

The HDD trades the ambiguity of traditional mission statements for a clear, compelling description of what the organization wants to be at a future date. Developing an HDD is an organization’s way of designing the future, an intentional means of long-range planning that serves as a guide for future actions and decision-making.

Building an HDD

HDD begins with a collaborative Situational Awareness exercise that helps leaders consider the many trends and threats in internal and external environments in order to increase the collective Situational Awareness and identify eminent challenges and opportunities. With this knowledge, leaders define or redefine a clear statement of the organization’s identity, purpose and principles. With shared Situational Awareness, leaders describe their organizations’s future in multiple key areas that come together to create a balanced, holistic and highly-defined future state – the design for the organization.

Strategy

The HDD determines what success looks like, and the Strategy determines how to achieve it.

Strategies for a Complex World

Flawless Execution’s approach to developing strategy focuses upon leveraging the complexity of your environment. As the highest level of planning, strategic organizational planning is effects-based — focusing less on the “how” and more on the “what.”

When leaders develop a strategy from Situational Awareness and effects-based thinking that targets Critical Leverage Points (CLPs), the strategy acquires greater agility, and therefore a greater chance of success in today’s tumultuous market.

TeamStorming

Strategy development with Flawless Execution leverages a powerful proprietary process called TeamStorming. This unique process enables teams to tap into the best ideas and turn them into actionable plans — all while empowering and engaging those who carry out those plans with both accountability and autonomy.

Leader's Intent

Having a strategy is one thing; executing it is something entirely different. High-performing organizations find the balance between setting strategic direction and allowing practical execution through decentralized decision-making empowered by Leader’s intent.

The use of collaborative planning and TeamStorming techniques at the strategic and operational levels of an organization cascades the intent of leadership and communicates that intent through the organization rapidly and effectively.

The Key to Organizational Alignment

Decentralized decision-making empowered by Leader’s Intent is the key to organizational alignment — and ultimately to effective execution of the overarching strategy. Everyone in the organization — from the front line to the C-suite — knows how their actions directly support the HDD.

Flawless Execution is a “fractal” planning tool, meaning that when used enterprise-wide, it ensures day-to-day operations are intentionally built to support high-level strategy and the HDD. Leader’s Intent means that an organization can say, with 100% confidence, that every team is executing toward those goals.

The Flawless Execution Cycle

Steps

PlanBriefExecuteDebriefWIN

The process portion of the model is the Flawless Execution Cycle, an iterative approach to daily operations and strategic execution aimed at creating a shared mental model that breaks down silos and communication barriers with simple, scalable process.

Military Beginnings, Business Application

The four-part Flawless Execution Cycle finds its origin in the zero-tolerance-for-error world of military aviation. The proprietary process leverages the connectedness of the modern organization in order to drive collaboration and accelerate learning at a time when the ability to do so is imperative to success.

Flawless Execution brings structure and discipline to the day-to-day process that ultimately make the difference between success and failure.

Steps

PlanBriefExecuteDebriefWIN

The Six Steps of Mission Planning

The six steps of mission planning is a common structure that’s applied strategically and tactically. This process leverages Situational Awareness, team member insight, lessons learned and contingency planning for more effective plans and improved execution.

State the mission objective

Identify threats

Identify resources

Evaluate lessons learned

Develop a course of action with individual accountability

Plan for contingencies

Steps

PlanBriefExecuteDebriefWIN

BRIEF the Mission

Pre-execution team briefs serve as a transition between the planning and execution phases, allowing teams to confirm alignment around plans and clarify remaining questions. In Flawless Execution, team leaders follow the B.R.I.E.F. acronym to conduct effective briefs.

Steps

PlanBriefExecuteDebriefWIN

STEALTH Debriefing

One of the most powerful tools in the Flawless Execution Cycle is the S.T.E.A.L.T.H. Debriefing model. The continuous improvement and performance acceleration achieved through proper debriefing is essential to developing a culture of learning in today’s organizations.

Set the time

Tone — Nameless and rankless

Execution — Analyze the execution towards the objective

Analyze the execution and identify root causes

Lessons learned — Develop actionable lessons

Transfer lessons learned — Save and transmit throughout the organization

Standards

Making Operation Excellence a Standard

The foundation of executing as a team lies in well-written and well-communicated standards. Standards provide a common set of principles and expectations that keep the organization on track and provide guidance when a plan breaks down.

Standards equate to scalability, allowing businesses to quickly scale the desired behaviors that support achieving organizational initiatives. Flawless Execution provides step-by-step processes and techniques to cultivate the necessary behaviors to transform your organization’s culture into one that’s focused on meeting and exceeding company goals.

Training

Constant training and less-formal learning activities are a necessity in complex, turbulent environments. Most, if not all, of your training should be aligned with the High-Definition Destination and the supporting strategies in order to affect the environments you operate within.

Our training curriculums employ Demo-Do training techniques. This means the training first explains what must be learned, the learning must be demonstrated and finally, the learner must perform the learning. All the practical skills required to master Flawless Execution follow a Demo-Do method.

People

The Agents of Successful Execution

High-performing teams are greater than the sum of their parts. From the individuals who bring experience and diverse perspectives to the strategic and tactical efforts, the people are the backbone of any company. Leading team members of all backgrounds and experiences to work together as one cohesive team aligned around a shared objective is the fundamental component in achieving organizational excellence. The principles of Flawless Execution directly support this ability.

Military Strategy & Execution for Executive Leadership

The framework applied by the military to complex or stressful situations during combat teaches people to have discipline, be thoughtful and align strategically with their teams. Based on these tried-and-true principles, our founding team of elite military leaders created Flawless ExecutionSM — a business framework that equips individuals and teams with the tools they need to successfully drive accountability, establish strategic alignment and build mission-first cultures.

Change Leadership

"...Our attendees were definitely equipped with new strategies and tactics to improve team work, thwart channelizing and minimize task saturation in the workplace."

"The impact that the Afterburner team building seminar had was incredible. Not only was it the highest rated segment of our annual meetings, but our store managers have begun to apply what they learned on a day-to-day basis. The Afterburner team building seminar received a standing ovation after every one of its programs. This has never happened before."

"The Afterburner team obviously spent an incredible amount of prep time getting to know our business and our competition. This enabled them to walk in speaking our language, which earned instant credibility with our senior leadership team. It opened the door to some great discussion around improving how we work together - the result of which has already made us a more effective team."